Sunday, 31 July 2016

On today's show I am privileged to be speaking with Andrew Wagner a Huntercoin evangelist living in Vancouver, Canada. Andrew was kind enough to break away from his gaming console to spend some time with us by giving us the inside scoop about Hunter Coin and what may just turn out to be the future of gaming.

I?'?d like to thank our sponsor CryptoCompare.com the absolute best resource on the internet for discovering new and exciting, up to date information on the ever changing world of crypto currencies. CryptoCompare.com - the Best resource for cryptocurrency traders and investors here at the dawn of the age of crypto currencies. CryptoCompare.com

And an extra special thanks to our sponsor Moonshine Cowboy Boot Wax, the Original, All Natural, non-toxic boot wax with a scent of orange. The Nashville Wax Company is now offering Moonshine Biker Boot Wax - yes the same high quality boot wax now available in black. Their newest product is Moonshine Miracle Residue Remover - for removing stubborn, sticky stuff. It?'?s like Goo Gone but without the toxic, petroleum based chemicals. All Moonshine products are 100% natural and are available at 15 different fine retail outlets in the Nashville area including the shops at the Nashville Airport.

To order a tin of Moonshine Boot Wax or a 4 oz bottle of Moonshine Miracle Residue Remover stay where you are. That?'?s right without even getting up out of your chair, just go to MoonshineBootwax.com. Use your credit card your debit card or better yet - pay the modern way with Bitcoin! That?'?s right Bitcoin - the Modern Way to Pay at MoonshineBootWax.com

And a shout out to the Bitcoins and Gravy Freelance Transcriptionist for his excellent and highly accurate work. Professional transcriptions of the show can be found on our website and to get in touch with The Freelance transcriptionist, just head over to:http://ift.tt/1z3CPmf

MAGIC WORD:

Hidden in each episode of Bitcoins and Gravy is a Magic Word. I know that it may sound absurd, but listen for the Magic Word and you can earn LTBcoin! First set up a free account at LetsTalkBitcoin.com. Then tune in to your favorite LTB podcast and when you hear the Magic Word, don't delay! Submit it to your account to claim a share of this week's distribution of LTBcoin. Listeners now have a full week from the release date to claim a magic word. Setting up an LTB account has always been fast and easy... and now it's profitable!!!

Special thanks to Alan Baird for his dobro, guitar and mandolin playing on many of the shows. Now that's some pickin man! Thanks also to Alex Munoz Guijarro for his excellent pedal steel playing on many of our shows.

Interviews for this episode were recorded and edited by John Barrett at The Tree House Studio - Nashville, Tennessee. All shows are produced by John Barrett with the moral support of his trusty sidekick Maxwell Rascalnikov Coyote Rex, aka Max.

Crypto (The Official Cryptocurrency Song)
Words and Music by John Barrett
Copyright 2016 RJM Publishing
BMI Nashville

Look at the Cryptocurrency, man it's sucha blur and see
A new one every day
They got the pump and dump
They?'?ll try to make you a chump
You better watch your back I say

I hear the troll box singing till my ears are ringin
I?'?m afraid just to go to bed
And I?'?m not feeling so well
Tell me should I buy or sell

We got the Android's tokin
And the Dopecoin smokin
It?'?s a thing mamma you should see
We got the Potcoin, man it's such a hot coin
All the way from Denver to DC

We got the Hashcoin, now we need a Stash coin
Or we?'?ll lose it all and that?'?s a drag
And I say blockchain schmockchain
I?'?d just like to get a bag

I think I?'?m gonna fly to Denver
I think I?'?m gonna get real high up on a bender
Maybe find a heart that?'?s tender
Help me to lay down and night

You know it's Soho strange when another exchange is
Creepin in like another bad sin
It?'?s a legitimate fear that they will disappear
And you will never see your money again

You tell me it's the right coin but it?'?s just a Litecoin
Maybe I?'?ll have tea with Charlie Lee
Oh baby and it?'?s blowin my mind
Cause I don?'?t know which one to buy

Blowin my mind
I don?'?t know which one to buy
Blowing my mind
I don?'?t know which one to buy

Good Lord I got my feet on the ground
But man my head is spinning round
And all the world is Crypto oh oh oh oh
Cryp tip, tip, tip, tip, tip
Toe.

The whole 2 hrs is spent in cross talk with Simon, Anthem and Cliff. Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future, Anthem Blanchard of Anthem Vaults and Cliff Baltzley of StashCrypto.We cover a whole host of topics regarding each of the companies represented. Special attention paid to the Texas Gold Suppository.Kidding it's the Texas Gold Depository.Original air date 7/31/16 on LogosRadioNetwork

Ethereum Classic is dominating the cryptocurrency news cycle. After a slumber of some days following the Ethereum hard fork that refunded investors of the raided DAO, the unforked and re-named Ethereum blockchain and its native token classic ether (ETC) surged. Exchanges enabled trade in the digital currency, investors bought in, miners pointed their hardware to it, and a new development community began to form.

But Ethereum Classic also has led to chaos and uncertainty. The forked half of the chain — sometimes dubbed “Ethereum One,” and supported by the Ethereum Foundation — is still running as well. Ethereum has, therefore, effectively split into two networks: an unprecedented situation in the cryptocurrency space.

The question on everybody's mind is, therefore: How will this end?

In this three-part series, Bitcoin Magazine provides an overview of some of the scenarios that circulate throughout the different Ethereum communities and the wider blockchain industry.

Part 1 of this series covered how the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum One (but not so much for Ethereum Classic.) Part 2 covered how the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum Classic (but not so much for Ethereum One.)

In Part 3: How the great Ethereum schism can end relatively badly for both Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One.

Author’s note: Not all scenarios or nuances may be accounted for, nor does inclusion in this list — or the order of it — say anything about likelihood.

Scenario 7: Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One Destroy Each Other

The seventh scenario is mostly attributed to (potential) adversaries of Ethereum — some have suggested adversaries from the Bitcoin-space. In this scenario, Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One engage in a sort of battle to the death that neither survives.

This could happen most obviously by technical failure. Replay attacks — transactions copied from one chain onto the other — already caused significant chaos. Perhaps other, so far undiscovered vulnerabilities, will be revealed soon.

But at this point, social failure scenarios may be a bigger threat.

One failure mode could result from a scenario where Ethereum Classic overtakes Ethereum One. It's not unthinkable that this would disincentivize Ethereum's most prolific developers to the point of quitting; especially if they sold their classic ether. And if not many new developers fill that gap, development may grind to a halt, potentially spelling the beginning of the end for both sides of the chain.

Another failure scenario is not unlike a potential failure scenario resulting from a contentious hard fork in Bitcoin. As explained by BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen on Quora:

“Bitcoin the technical gizmo is very good at one particular thing: Answering the question 'what is the current state of balances?' with very strong consensus among everybody doing the answering. That isn't going to change. What Bitcoin the technical gizmo can't solve is answering the question 'What is Bitcoin?' The biggest immediate threat to Bitcoin is the potential creation of a multitude of hard forks, resulting in the whole thing collapsing in a mess of incompatible squabbling with no agreement over what the 'real' Bitcoin is.”

Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One do seem to be co-existing relatively peacefully so far. Both have their own name, their own currency, their own community, and more.

But this may change.

It may change if Ethereum Classic overtakes Ethereum One. A growing number of Ethereum Classic users may at that point logically (at least from their point of view) claim to be the real Ethereum, while the Ethereum One community may do the same.

It may also change through the legal system. At one point, a judge may have to decide which Ethereum is the real Ethereum. This could open up another can of worms — not in the least because the Ethereum protocol itself is sometimes claimed to be “above the law.” Not to mention that different courts in different jurisdictions might come to different opinions.

And these are only the two most obvious scenarios. There is probably a near-endless number of reasons for a divided community to “end up in a mess of incompatible squabbling.”

Scenario 8: Both Ethereum Versions Become Obsolete

This is the scenario expected by the permissioned blockchain-crowd and the “Bitcoin Maximalists” — just for completely different reasons.

For the permissioned blockchain-crowd, the Ethereum split is evidence that an open, permissionless cyrptocurrency-like system with no authority cannot offer a long-term value proposition. The future of this technology, they maintain, lies in adaptations that are better suited to exist within the current legal and financial systems, where responsibility is much better defined. Ethereum-like systems have no place in that future — they think.

Bitcoin Maximalists, meanwhile, believe there can be an open, permissionless cryptocurrency-like system with no authority — but only one: Bitcoin. They maintain there's very little reason for any altcoins to have any long-term value; Bitcoin has the largest network effect and the most security, and they see in the coin-split a confirmation that Bitcoin has the best development community and most resilient infrastructure. Moreover, they maintain that most, if not all, useful futures from altcoins can be copied onto Bitcoin, either on the protocol level or as a sidechain. That includes Ethereum-like features. Rootstock, an Ethereum-like sidechain, is currently in development. And some Ethereum-like apps can already be applied as specific sidechains (such as Namecoin).

For Bitcoin Maximalists, therefore, all altcoins — including both versions of Ethereum — serve as testbeds for innovation at best, or pump-and-dump scams at worst. And Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One will do that equally well.

Ethereum Classic is dominating the cryptocurrency news cycle. After a slumber of some days following the Ethereum hard fork that refunded investors of the hacked DAO, the unforked and re-named Ethereum blockchain and its native token classic ether (ETC) surged. Exchanges enabled trade in the digital currency, investors bought in, miners pointed their hardware to it, and a new development community began to form.

But Ethereum Classic also has led to chaos and uncertainty. The forked half of the chain — sometimes dubbed “Ethereum One,” and supported by the Ethereum Foundation — is still running as well. Ethereum has, therefore, effectively split into two networks. An unprecedented situation in the cryptocurrency space.

The question on everybody's mind is, therefore: How will this end?

In this three-part series, Bitcoin Magazine provides an overview of some of the scenarios that circulate throughout the different Ethereum communities and the wider blockchain industry.

Part 1 of this series covered how the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum One (but not so much for Ethereum Classic).

In Part 2: How the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum Classic (but not so much for Ethereum One).

Author’s note: Not all scenarios or nuances may be accounted for, nor does inclusion in this list — or order thereof — say anything about likelihood.

Ethereum Classic may continue growing to the point where it catches up with, or overtakes, Ethereum One by market share and hash power. While this was originally a long-term plan at best for the Ethereum Classic community, the recent surge suggests it might happen much sooner than anyone expected.

This scenario could play out in several ways. Here are more sub-scenarios.

Perhaps Ethereum Classic draws in a whole new set of users that were never interested in Ethereum before. This could happen for multiple reasons. With the removal of a (perceived) central point of control — the Ethereum Foundation — Ethereum Classic seems to have attracted a new wave of interest already. Meanwhile, Ethereum Classic is cheaper to use than Ethereum One. And its dedication to censorship-resistance and immutability may attract a certain class of users and use-cases as well - especially since all properties of Ethereum One should be offered as well. And, of course, there may be other reasons.

Or, perhaps more and more Ethereum One users will switch back to Ethereum Classic. This could also happen for several reasons. It's very unclear, for example, how much support the hard fork ever really had; this support may have been severely overstated. And even if the hard fork had much support before it happened, users may reassess their original position now that they are no longer financially invested in The DAO. Perhaps more of them will come to agree that immutability is a vital property of a blockchain, or that the Ethereum Foundation represents a single point of failure. Or maybe the Ethereum Foundation will make more controversial decisions, driving users away. And again, there may be other reasons.

There are also different possible outcomes if Ethereum Classic overtakes Ethereum One.

First of all: Ethereum One software clients will not automatically switch back to the (original) Ethereum Classic chain if it ever becomes the chain with the most proof of work. (This is also referred to as the “longest” chain — though it's not really about length.) There would still be two separate chains, with two distinct currencies.

Regardless, more users may consider Ethereum Classic the “real” Ethereum from that moment on. Before and shortly after the hard fork, many proponents of the hard fork maintained that the “real” Ethereum would be the one with longest chain. If Ethereum Classic overtakes Ethereum One, by their own logic these users would have to switch back. (Or they would have to re-think their position on what determines the “real” Ethereum.)

Either way, Ethereum inventor and project lead Vitalik Buterin — on behalf of the Ethereum Foundation — has committed to work on the Ethereum One project. Assuming he does, the Ethereum Classic project could still copy code from Ethereum One, even if Ethereum One is much smaller. While it may be strange for the most important developers to primarily develop for a minority chain, it does not have to be a fundamental problem.

It is also possible, though, that the Ethereum Classic project develops a more distinct technological vision over time. In that case, Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One could copy code from each other — and reject what they don't like.

Scenario 5: Ethereum One Splinters

As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, now that they appear viable, Ethereum coin-splits may happen more often. And, of course, that’s not only true for Ethereum Classic; Ethereum One may experience further splintering as well.

This scenario would closely resemble the scenario where Ethereum Classic splinters, except that it would be the Ethereum One community that branches out, or both Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One do. Perhaps in such a way that there will be no clear “main chain” at all. Instead, all different Ethereum projects could co-exist much like different altcoins do today (not counting Bitcoin.) They would vary in size and popularity over time, providing for different use-cases, with no clear winner.

Scenario 6: Only Ethereum Classic Lives On, Ethereum One Fails

As a sixth scenario, Ethereum Classic may not only overtake Ethereum One, but essentially “defeat” the fork attempt, and “restore” the pre-fork Ethereum chain as the one and only Ethereum chain.

Ethereum One failure scenarios relating to Ethereum Classic resemble the examples in Scenario 4, except that these scenarios would continue to play out until only the Ethereum Classic chain is left — perhaps as a sort of snowball-effect back to the original chain.

And there’s an additional category of scenario’s that could spell the end for Ethereum One entirely: scenario’s pertaining to the Ethereum Foundation. Since Ethereum One and the Ethereum Foundation are closely linked, the foundation may be cause for an exodus from Ethereum One to Ethereum Classic, which does not have such a (perceived) single point of failure.

For one, the Ethereum Foundation might change course itself. If the Ethereum Foundation ever switched focus back to Ethereum Classic, support for Ethereum One might just disappear entirely. This could happen voluntarily, perhaps for one of the reasons described in Scenario 4. Or maybe the Ethereum Foundation will be forced to focus on Ethereum One by court order; it has been suggested that legal cases are already in the making.

Or maybe key members of the Ethereum Foundation quit altogether. Perhaps voluntarily, because they don’t want to develop for the platform any longer. Or perhaps involuntarily, for instance due to mentioned legal trouble. And there are some darker scenario’s as well, scenario’s where “something bad” happens to these key members.

(Though in most of these scenarios, as pointed out in the first part of this series, Ethereum One could still live on as an irrelevant altcoin.)

In Part 3: How the great Ethereum schism can end badly for both Ethereum Classic and Ethereum One.

Ethereum Classic is dominating the cryptocurrency news cycle. After a slumber of some days following the Ethereum hard fork that refunded investors of the hacked DAO, the unforked and re-named Ethereum blockchain and its native token classic ether (ETC) surged. Exchanges enabled trade in the digital currency, investors bought in, miners pointed their hardware to it, and a new development community is forming.

But Ethereum Classic also has led to chaos and uncertainty. The forked half of the chain — sometimes dubbed “Ethereum One,” and supported by the Ethereum Foundation — is still running as well. Ethereum has, therefore, effectively split into two networks. An unprecedented situation in the cryptocurrency space.

The question on everybody's mind is, therefore: How will this end?

In this three-part series, Bitcoin Magazine provides an overview of some of the scenarios that circulate throughout the different Ethereum communities and the wider blockchain industry.

In Part 1: How the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum One (but not so much for Ethereum Classic.)

Author’s note: Not all scenarios or nuances may be accounted for, nor does inclusion in this list — or the order of it — say anything about likelihood.

Scenario 1: Ethereum Classic Fails

This is the scenario many predicted before and shortly after the hard fork happened. Some within the Ethereum One community are still expecting, and perhaps hoping, for this scenario to play out.

Ethereum Classic can fail in several ways, sub-scenarios if you will.

Some consider Ethereum Classic nothing but a scam. The tokens on the “abandoned” side of the chain (abandoned by a majority of hash power, so far) are inherently worthless, they maintain. Anyone who says otherwise must, therefore, be trying to scam people by selling them these “worthless” coins. And like any other scam, it will come to an end sooner or later.

Others describe Ethereum Classic as a sort of anti-Ethereum movement, driven by trolls or adversaries that would like to see Ethereum or the hard fork fail. If these trolls or adversaries are ignored long enough, they will also have to cease their effort at some point.

Yet others claim that development of Ethereum Classic, and development of applications built on top of Ethereum Classic, will grind to a halt as focus re-shifts to Ethereum One: the blockchain and currency with a bigger network effect. This would render Ethereum Classic useless and cause people to leave the chain behind.

Or maybe Ethereum Classic will become more or less obsolete at some point in the future. If Ethereum One somehow implements changes that prevent similar contentious hard forks, it may convince the Ethereum Classic community that the “rollback” really was a one-time only event, and have them decide to re-join Ethereum One.

Lastly, the Ethereum Classic network can be 51%-attacked — perhaps by miners supportive of Ethereum One. If this 51%-attack persists long enough, other miners as well as users may give up and abandon the chain for good.

The counter-argument to all these failure scenarios, is that cryptocurrencies have a way of hardly ever really dying. All it really takes to keep a cryptocurrency going is a single user with a spark of idealism, hope, interest or some other reason to run the software and mine coins.

That said, it is possible that one or several of the failure scenarios would cause Ethereum Classic to lose its momentum and shine. It could end up as one of the hundreds of completely irrelevant altcoins that almost no one really cares about; a practical failure.

Scenario 2: Ethereum Classic Lives On as the Minority Chain

This scenario was originally expected by the Bitcoin Classic initiators.

Before the hard fork, the Bitcoin Classic project leaders hoped to claim, perhaps, 1 percent of the network hash rate and value. Additionally, they expected it would take weeks or months to build a bit of community, infrastructure and everything else a cryptocurrency requires to be viable. In the meantime, the Bitcoin Classic project would simply copy any (non-controversial) code from the Ethereum One branch to keep the project moving forward.

As such, Ethereum Classic would continue to exist as an alternative to fall back on, perhaps in case the forked chain should fail for some unexpected reason. Or maybe because the Ethereum One developers would opt for another contentious hard fork in the future. Detractors could then switch to Ethereum Classic, even with their old ETC balance intact.

While not everyone on the Ethereum One side of the community may be happy with Ethereum Classic's existence, it perhaps doesn't need to be all that harmful either. As long as Ethereum One is considered the main chain, most attention and development would, in this scenario, focus on Ethereum One, which could move ahead as planned.

This scenario can still play out, but with the added benefit for Ethereum Classic that the initial wave of adoption happened much sooner than many expected.

Scenario 3: Ethereum Classic Splinters

Now that it appears viable, Ethereum coin-splits may happen more often. And additional branches may split off from Ethereum Classic in particular, as that community fundamentally rejects centralized leadership to guide the project into a single direction.

Indeed, a new schism seems to already be forming within the Ethereum Classic community. Specifically, some users want to follow Ethereum One's every move except for “bailouts” and similar breaches of Ethereum Classic's core principles. Others prefer to adopt more of a distinct technological vision for Ethereum Classic, perhaps, most importantly, rejecting a future switch to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

Ethereum One may, in that case, remain the main “Ethereum branch” while three, four, or perhaps even many more minor branches, co-exist. Perhaps with their own “specialty”; one “commercial” branch for everyday-use cases, one more “radically immutable” branch, perhaps a “darker” branch suited for illegal activity, and maybe more. This sort of specialization would not be dissimilar to many other open-source projects.

In Part 2: How the great Ethereum schism can end relatively well for Ethereum Classic (but not so much for Ethereum One.)

Bitcoin is designed as a peer-to-peer network, where nodes randomly connect to other nodes. Transactions and blocks are transmitted over this network by these nodes, until each has received all. This works quite well, as the distributed model makes Bitcoin relatively censorship-resistant; there is no central point of control to shut down or pressure into compliance.

But it also has a significant downside: The peer-to-peer network is relatively slow. As such, miners (and pools) sometimes waste hash power mining on top of an old block while a newer block is finding its way through the network. Transmission delay, therefore, benefits pooled mining as well as geographic clustering of miners, incentivizing a more centralized mining topology. This is generally considered one of the bottlenecks for scalability, as larger blocks (which can include more transactions) propagate even more slowly.

Over the past years, therefore, several projects have been in development to increase the speed of block propagation. These projects focus on roughly two main issues: block compression to limit the amount of data that needs to be propagated over the network, and relay speed to cut the time it takes for blocks to propagate.

This two-part series provides an overview of these projects. Part 1 covered block compression. Part 2 will examine ways of speeding up the network.

Fast Relay Network (AKA Matt Corallo's Relay Network)

The Fast Relay Network, also known as Matt Corallo's Relay Network, is a relatively straightforward relay network setup by Corallo, and has existed for some years. The Fast Relay Network consists of nine nodes, distributed strategically around the globe. Designed as a hub-and-spoke model, miners can connect to the relay node closest to them to send and receive blocks over this network. This is significantly faster than Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network.

The main downside of the Fast Relay Network is that it's relatively centralized: Corallo controls it. And while the software is open source, no one else has set up a similar open relay network so far. (Though mining pools do have similar — but closed — setups among themselves, and typically for “internal” use among their own nodes.)

For more details, seeBitcoin Magazine'searlier articleon the Fast Relay Network.

Falcon

As blocks are transferred over Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network, they are really transmitted in several IP-packets. Each node on the network receives each packet, and reconstructs blocks from the data in these different packets. Once the block is reconstructed and considered valid, nodes forward the block to other nodes. Again, of course, in different packets.

To speed this process up, Cornell University researchers Soumya Basu, Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer are developing theFalcon relay network. Falcon uses a technique called “cut-through routing,” where nodes don't wait to receive all packages to forward them. Instead, they forward each package as soon as they receive it, while initially checking only the block header. They reconstruct the block in the meantime, as the rest of the packages arrive.

This solution does have one disadvantage: Nodes can validate a full block only after they have received all required packages. As such, there's a small risk of a dishonest miner transmitting invalid packages all across the network, wasting competitor resources.

To solve this, the Falcon network operates with gatekeepers: the Cornell University team. As such, the Falcon network itself isn't entirely decentralized; the idea is that it decentralizes Bitcoin's overall network topology through diversity.

FIBRE

As noted, blocks on the Bitcoin network are really transmitted in several IP-packets. Unfortunately, package-loss is a significant bottleneck for propagation speed; even on relay networks. While it doesn’t necessarily happen very often, packet-loss can cause spikes in transmission-time, as nodes need to re-communicate data.

FIBRE (Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine), also developed by Corallo, is a re-designed relay-protocol. As perhaps its most interesting solution, it is built on the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). This is an alternative to the far more common TCP internet protocol, and currently mostly used for Voice over IP (Skype) and gaming. As an important differentiator from all the above protocols, UDP allows FIBRE to use a nifty trick known as Forward Error Correction (FEC). This lets nodes reconstruct all of the transmitted data even if some of it got lost on the way.

And: FIBRE is specifically designed for Compact Blocks; the innovation discussed in Part 1 of this series. The combination of FIBRE with Compact Blocks, as statistics collected by Corallo show, make FIBRE nearly as fast as the speed of light.

Lastly, FIBRE is designed to be a more decentralized alternative to other relay networks. Specifically, as a key feature of FIBRE, it's designed as a sort of “add on” for Bitcoin Core, so anyone who runs a node should be able set up his or her own network.

Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada, and five other Canadian banks (like a growing number of banks around the world) are experimenting with blockchain technology and a possible digital dollar as the growing demand for digital fintech payment systems puts the squeeze on the traditional banking sector.

At a recent IMF/World Bank conference hosted by the U.S. Federal Reserve, an estimated 90 central banks, including the Bank of Canada, came forward to talk about their research into and experiments with distributed ledger technology (DLT), the blockchain and digital currencies.

The big Canadian banks are also members of the R3 Consortium, which is working with 50 member banks worldwide, developing a foolproof methodology and standard for blockchain technologies for banks.

The Bank of Canada is cautious in commenting on its digital money experiments but is adamant that this is just an experiment and nothing more.

Martin Bégin, a representative speaking for the Bank of Canada, told Bitcoin Magazine:

“What was referred to as CAD-coin is just a means of representing settlement balances on the distributed ledger, like a deposit receipt. It could also be called ‘deposit-coin’ or ‘settlement-coin.’ It doesn’t exist as a medium of exchange outside the experimental wholesale payment system. Our only goal at this stage is to understand the mechanics, limits and possibilities of this technology.”

Bégin said that the Bank of Canada chose to experiment with Ethereum because the members were the most familiar and experienced with coding on that platform.

“This particular project is one part of a larger Bank of Canada work plan to investigate the distributed ledger technology and better understand its characteristics,” he said. “We may look at other platforms going forward.”

According to Bégin, the greater potential for DTL lies beyond the Bitcoin blockchain, in applications outside of digital currencies.

“Fintech is an important part of the Bank’s research agenda, and this not a coincidence,” he said. “There are many benefits of fintech, but realizing those, while guarding against the risks it could create, will require strong collaboration among policymakers, incumbent financial institutions and new entrants. For the Bank of Canada, one of the best ways to really understand this technology is to build and experiment with it, in conjunction with the industry. It’s our job to be forward-looking.”

Fintech Experts: Regulatory Uncertainty is Stifling Fintech Development in Canada

Meanwhile the Canadian Money Service Business Association (CMSBA), representing more than 800 MSBs, is petitioning the federal government’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), the agency responsible for regulating fintech, to clearly define money services businesses to include digital currencies businesses.

“There are few Canadian banks that will deal with Bitcoin companies, and in some instances only if those companies are registered as MSBs with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).”

The CMSBA sent a letter to Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) recently, saying members have had their bank accounts closed in “what appears to be a sector-wide sweep even though they are compliant with all anti-money laundering rules.”

In a regulatory Catch-22, as part of their “de-risking strategy,” banks need FINTRAC to define digital fintech startups as money services businesses before they can offer a business account.

“Regulators such as FINTRAC and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) are known to have relatively negative views of MSBs (whether this is organization-wide or the bias of some examiners I cannot say),” said Scott, “which makes me wonder if the MSB designation will do more harm than good when it comes to the ability of Bitcoin companies to access the traditional financial system.

“Even if our regulatory regime nets out favorably (and I hope that it does), access to banking may force companies to choose other jurisdictions. This is truly unfortunate as Canada has the potential to become a hub for fintech innovation — but we are rapidly depleting any advantages that we once had.”

The Financial Postreports that recently an unidentified bank was fined $1.1 million by FINTRAC for providing accounts to money service businesses and that an apparent crackdown is making it harder for fintech companies to get bank accounts.

FINTRAC, on the other hand, is stalling on defining Bitcoin and digital currencies businesses as “Money Services Businesses” leaving the fintech startups in a Catch-22 between the banks and regulators.

In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Kyle Kemper, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, noted the need for the Canadian Bitcoin community to advocate for progress. “At this point the lobby for crypto pales in comparison to the banking and payments lobby. A course of inaction could lead to a greater movement away from the fiat in general as crypto solution providers' solutions become more robust, frictionless, and adopted.”

Coinbase Bumps Up Against Canada’s Regulatory Uncertainty

Coinbase, one of the world’s most successful Bitcoin companies, recently notified its Canadian customers that it was withdrawing from the Canadian market and could no longer support transactions in Canadian dollars.

At the same time, the company was setting up in Japan and had recently expanded to Australia, making it the 33rd country served by Coinbase.

Fred Ehrsam, president and co-founder of Coinbase, said in a recent Reddit AMA:

“Our mission is to create an open financial system for the world and part of that is making digital currency as easy to access, in as many countries as possible. So it makes me sad that we've had an interruption there [in Canada]. The goal is to get it back online when we have a good payment service provider or bank in Canada. A bunch proactively reached out when that news went out, so hopefully we will get a good replacement soon.”

“The fact that they [Coinbase] struggle with one of the primary pillars of being an exchange, being able to process fiat withdrawals and deposits, shows that Canada is difficult environment for Bitcoin Fintech companies to operate in,” said Kemper.

Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins noted recently that what she calls “traditional trusted intermediaries” may be replaced by more convenient technologies; however, she doesn’t believe that Canada’s regulatory body is lagging behind.

“Fintech regulators also face the difficult challenge of balancing the need to ensure the safety and soundness of the financial markets against the need to encourage further innovation,” she said.

“The regulatory framework needs to adapt so that the door is not opened to unmanaged financial and operational risks, unchecked critical dependencies within our financial system and moral hazard. Promoting financial stability is a core function of the Bank of Canada, and we take a system-wide perspective when we monitor risks.”

According to Scott, however, the system is set up in such a way that many companies are having a difficult time playing by all the rules, all the time.

“In many ways, the banks are acting as both gatekeepers and de facto regulators, which is truly unfortunate. We've spoken with the CEO of a company who asked a bank that had committed to investing $1 million if the bank would open a business account for them and the answer was ‘no.’ It's completely baffling to me that a bank would be willing to invest money in a business but not provide an operating account for that business.”

Scott noted that MSBs and fintech companies are sometimes afraid to go on record because they don't want to lose their existing bank accounts, including accounts that may have been opened covertly under the guise of software companies or numbered companies.

“Banks and credit unions are afraid to open accounts or to keep them open, since they face pressure from FINTRAC and OSFI to treat all of these accounts as high risk (which is not a regulatory requirement) or to close them,” said Scott.

“These tactics are directly driving risky behavior,” she added. “Ultimately, the only ones winning at this game are criminals, because legitimate businesses are being forced to act evasively, which in turn, makes illicit activity more difficult to identify.”

Bitcoin is designed as a peer-to-peer network, where nodes randomly connect to other nodes. Transactions and blocks are transmitted over this network by these nodes, until each has received all. This works quite well, as the distributed model makes Bitcoin relatively censorship-resistant; there is no central point of control to shut down or pressure into compliance.

But it also has a significant downside: The peer-to-peer network is relatively slow. As such, miners (and pools) sometimes waste hash power mining on top of an old block while a newer block is finding its way through the network. Transmission delay, therefore, benefits pooled mining as well as geographic clustering of miners, incentivizing a more centralized mining topology. This is generally considered one of the bottlenecks for scalability, as larger blocks (which can include more transactions) propagate even more slowly.

Over the past years, therefore, several projects have been in development to increase the speed of block propagation. These projects focus on roughly two main issues: block compression to limit the amount of data that needs to be propagated over the network, and relay speed to cut the time it takes for blocks to propagate.

This two-part series provides an overview of these projects. Part 1 will cover block compression.

Head First Mining

Each Bitcoin block has a block header, which refers to all data in that block. A hash of this block header must be included in the subsequent block in order for that next block to be valid. That's how all blocks on the blockchain are chained.

When a miner finds a block, it sends out the block header first — quickly followed by the rest of the block. This header, as well as the rest of the block, is checked for validity by receiving nodes. If valid, miners will mine “on top of” that block using the block header. The block (including the header) is also forwarded to other nodes.

Head First Mining is a trick proposed by former Bitcoin Core lead developer Gavin Andresen. With Head First Mining, miners don’t wait for the complete block to arrive before they start mining a subsequent block. Instead, they immediately mine on top of the block header as soon as they receive it, and also forward the header to other nodes. This obviously saves time.

Head First Mining does, however, have two disadvantages. First, miners don’t know for sure whether the block they are mining on top of is really valid. While the block header may appear valid (due to sufficient proof of work), the block may, for example, include invalid transactions. As such, there is a bit of risk involved in this solution. “Attacking” fellow-miners with fake blockheaders to have them waste resources is expensive, but not impossible.

Second, as a perhaps bigger disadvantage, miners have no idea which transactions are included in the block they are mining on top of. As such, the only way to ensure their subsequent block is valid, and doesn’t double-spend a transaction, is by including no transactions at all. Only after miners receive the complete block will they work on a block that does include transactions.

Of course, this means that some blocks will be empty, which isn’t great for network throughput. (But if the block size can be increased as a result, it might compensate.)

Compact Blocks

As seen, Bitcoin nodes typically forward each other blocks over the peer-to-peer network. Unfortunately, this can cause significant outbound bandwidth spikes each time a new block is found, which can slow down block propagation in between nodes.

Compact Blocks, developed by Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo, is a trick designed to decrease data-transmission. When a new block is found, nodes initially communicate only very compact hashes of transaction data. Because nodes already received the full transaction data when it was originally sent over the network, they can use these hashes to figure out which transactions are included in the block, and reconstruct the full block themselves.

But this trick does not always work out perfectly. If a node has not yet received the initial transaction before receiving the hashes, it cannot select the corresponding transaction. Additionally, in rare cases a wrong transaction may hash into a right hash, fooling a node into believing it received the right transaction — until it tries to reconstruct the block and finds it doesn't add up.

In both these cases of failure, the node simply requests the specific transaction data after all. Even with some full transactions in them, Compact Blocks will transmit over the network much faster and require significantly less bandwidth.

Xtreme Thinblocks

Xtreme Thinblocks, an option included in Bitcoin Unlimited, is similar to Compact Blocks in many ways; for example, rather than sending all transaction data, Xtreme Thinblocks transmit more compact hashes.

As the main difference, Xtreme Thinblocks use an extra mathematical trick to communicate transaction hashes: Bloom Filters. Without going into too much detail of exactly how this trick works, Bloom Filters are compact data structures that sort of turn the Compact Blocks trick upside down. Nodes can use Bloom Filters to figure out which transactions in a block a node is missing, and request only these.

Weak Blocks

Thus, the validity of Bitcoin blocks is, in part, determined by the block header. More specifically, the hash of this block header must start with at least a specific amount of zeroes, partly resulting from a random number (“nonce”) also included in the block header. Having the sufficient amount of zeroes “proves” that the required proof of work was done.

The specific amount of zeroes required is determined by the difficulty. So, as an example that doesn't actually translate into reality, let's say the difficulty is eight. That would mean the hash of a blockheader would need to start with eight zeroes; a hashed block header that starts with six or seven zeroes would not be valid. It would perhaps be “almost valid,” but not quite.

Weak Blocks, a relatively old idea, are essentially “almost valid” blocks. They are normal blocks in every way: They include transactions and all the rest — except that the hash of its header doesn't start with enough zeroes.

Weak Blocks can be useful. By transmitting Weak Blocks over the network, miners can indicate on what block they're working, and which transactions it includes.

Then, when a miner does find some way to hash the block correctly, he has a valid block. And since all other miners now already know on which block that miner was working, he really needs only to transmit a minimal amount of data: a confirmation and the correct nonce. So while the total amount of data sent over the network is actually increased (as weak blocks are transmitted all the time), the relevant data to mine on top of is limited.

Tomorrow: On Relay: How Different Bitcoin Developers are Speeding up the Network (Part 2)

We are excited to announce that consumers in Canada & Singapore can now instantly buy bitcoin and ether with their debit and credit cards.

To get started, visit the “Trade” page on Coinbase.com or tap on the “Buy” or “Sell” options in our iOS or Android apps to add a credit or debit card and buy digital currency. Please note that at this time users in Canada can only buy digital currency. We hope to add the ability to sell digital currency in Canada as well soon.

Your feedback is important to us. Feel free to reach out to us at our Community Forum. If you don’t have a Coinbase account, sign up here!

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

This episode we team up with John Barrett of Bitcoins & Gravy and James Corbett of The Corbett Report. Jonathan Mohan also joins in for some insight on ETH vs ETC.With John Barrett we get into his humble beginnings of how he got into Bitcoin and much more.The second hr we talk with James Corbett along with John Barrett about the Japanese equivalent of Casascius Coin called Satori Coin and an in depth look at the 28 pages as only James Corbett can.Original air date 7/27/16 on LogosRadioNetwork

One of South Korea's largest banks has inked an agreement with the best funded startup working in the bitcoin space. KB Kookmin announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with bitcoin payments startup Circle, as well as local startup Coinplug, today. Coinplug, which is based in South Korea, was previously revealed to be working with […]

The economists’ conclusion is that the Bitcoin economy has grown and matured from an early prototype stage, through a second growth stage characterized by “sin” (i.e. gambling, black markets), to a third stage marked by a sharp progression away from “sin” and toward legitimate enterprises.

The conclusion is hardly surprising: Blockchain-related press headlines, which used to be mostly about Mt. Gox and Silk Road only a couple of years ago, today tend to be about banks, exchanges and even central banks taking steps toward the operational use of blockchain technology. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how this conclusion was reached by thorough economic analysis.

Bitcoin Magazine reached out to senior author Paolo Tasca, a director at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies, to find out more about the research and related issues. Tasca, a fintech economist specializing in P2P financial systems and systemic risk, is a former senior research economist at Deutsche Bundesbank and a co-editor of the book “Banking Beyond Banks and Money.”

“Our study starts by gathering together the minimum units of Bitcoin identities (the individual addresses) and it goes forward in grouping them into approximations of business entities, what we call ‘super clusters,’ by using tested techniques from the literature,” explained Tasca. “A super cluster can be thought of as an approximation of a business entity in that it describes a number of individual addresses that are owned or controlled collectively by the same beneficial owner for some special economic purposes. The majority of these important clusters are initially unknown and uncategorized.”

“The novelty of our study is given by the Pure User Group (PUG) and the Transaction Pattern (TP) analyses, by means of which we are able to ascribe the super clusters into specific business categories and outline a map of the network of payment relationships among them,” continued Tasca.

The researchers identified four primary business categories in the Bitcoin economy: miners, gambling services, black markets and exchanges. It also included the three regimes mentioned above: early prototyping, “sin” and legitimate enterprises.

The researchers studied the patterns of transaction behavior between the business categories and their users. The outcome of the study, which provides a quantitative assessment of the systemically important categories within the Bitcoin economy and their network of payment relationships, suggests a relevant public policy conclusion: Some recent concerns regarding the use of bitcoin for illegal transactions at the present time might be overstated and whatever such transactions may exist could further diminish as the Bitcoin economy continues to mature.

The University College London (UCL) Centre for Blockchain Technologies (CBT) is an interdepartmental, industry-oriented unit of UCL with the purpose to set the foundations for a new cross-disciplinary research area on distributed-consensus ledgers. The UCL CBT — currently comprising more than 30 research associates and seven funding departments with competences around three major research areas: Science and Technology, Economics and Finance and Policy, Law and Regulation — is committed to becoming the leading European research hub with an industry focus on the impact of blockchain technologies on socio-economic systems and the promotion of a safe and organic development and adoption of blockchain-based platforms.

Tasca isn’t at liberty to share much information on UCL-CBT projects because of confidentiality restrictions. However, he confirmed that the UCL-CBT is involved in U.K. government initiatives to develop and deploy blockchain technology.

“Specifically, in U.K. the UCL-CBT is interacting with: 1) the Department of Work and Pension on a specific case study for payment system, 2) BoE, FCA on the use of smart contracts for algorithmic regulation and on the design of central bank issued digital currencies, 3) UCL-CBT is represented with Whitechapel Think Tank on distributed ledger technologies,” noted Tasca. “In addition, the CBT is involved with several projects with the Alan Turing Institute.”

Discussing the top opportunities and threats for blockchain-based fintech, Tasca noted that this is a complicated issue because blockchain technologies can find application in different domains. However, while most interest has come from the financial industry so far, Tasca expects to see more future activity in other sectors such as energy, telecommunications, media and healthcare.

“New opportunities will emerge for them to redesign their business logic,” Tasca told Bitcoin Magazine.

“The major threat I see so far is the lack of ‘technology literacy’: the lack of the ability to understand how blockchain works in the world,” continued Tasca. “This can hamper the development and spread of the technology. Thus, a more important educational effort is required to help blockchain become a mainstream technology used in different business processes: This represents the long-term aim and goal of the UCL-CBT.”

To advance this important educational effort, the UCL-CBT will host the P2P Financial Systems 2016 (P2PFISY 2016) international workshop in September. “This is the second edition of the P2PFISY workshop,” said Tasca. “This is a unique event in Europe because it will bring together scholars, regulators and practitioners interested in addressing questions of practical importance on digital currencies and blockchain technologies, P2P lending and crowdfunding, digital money transfer, mobile banking and mobile payments.”

Tasca declined to comment on the recent unfortunate events related to Ethereum and The DAO. However, he is persuaded that blockchain technologies — especially through smart contracts, agent automation and DAOs — represent a new institutional technology: a new form of crypto-economic mechanism which allows governing of the difficulties inherent in transacting.

“Opportunism (e.g., adverse selection, moral hazard) is by far the more difficult market friction which has been handled so far via traditional organizational hierarchies (which exploit incomplete contracts) and bilateral agreements (which require trust between parties),” Tasca told Bitcoin Magazine. “Now, blockchains, smart contracts and DAOs can eliminate opportunism or at least compete with traditional forms of hierarchies and bilateral contracting. Their use case applications are very large and may include escrows, voting, and eviction, among the others. The combined use of the blockchain and smart contracts creates a platform where individuals can exchange, manufacture and execute contracts with considerable sophistication and with little cost. In perspective, by using appropriate automations (and its inherent standardization), they may evolve and bring about the completeness of missing markets.

“I just wish to point out that our society is used to failures since the beginning of the first barter trades in the prehistoric age,” continued Tasca. “These did not stop with the advent of more sophisticated technologies and markets. The fact that now, thanks to technology, business can be run independently — without human intervention in the decision-making process — by machines, is welcome, but do not remove the sources of business risks which can bring failures.

“Having said that, in the particular case under discussion, many of Ethereum developers were also involved to some degree with The DAO. This brought an enormous conflict of interest because those who have the ability to shape changes in the Ethereum protocol had also a stake on one of its main applications, The DAO. Indeed, Ethereum is controlled by Vitalik Buterin mostly via his private Swiss-based non-profit organization, which received the proceeds of the ether auction, financing most of the development of Ethereum so far and which may own or control some of the resulting work.

“To conclude, the conflict of interest led to a lose-lose strategy: Ethereum, also stakeholder of The DAO, decided to bail out the too-big-to-fail business. Without going into a debate about the quality of the code review process before releasing it to the market, this bailout has set a precedent and it would not be easy in the future to handle opportunistic moral-hazard behaviors.

“Maybe, to bring more transparency, the entire governance structure of the Ethereum community with clear rules between all the stakeholders shall be redesigned based on pure principles of decentralized autonomous organizations.

“As a side note, the methodology used in our study could be applied to the Ethereum blockchain to map the network of payments there and include smart contracts and DAOs as categories.”

The recent publication of the much-discussed Bank of England (BoE) working paper titled “The Macroeconomics of Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies,” focused on the macroeconomic consequences of issuing central bank digital currency (CBDC) and shows that digital currencies are really and clearly on a fast path toward mainstream adoption.

Tasca noted that the paper implicitly borrows from the idea of George Danezis and Sarah Meiklejohn (2015) of having a cryptocurrency framework that decouples the generation of the monetary supply from the maintenance of the transaction ledger and suggested that central bank-certified institutions should act as verifiers. However, he noted that as it has been modelled, the CBDC is more similar to a “digicash" type of solution than a P2P digital currency, and the generation of digital currency by the central bank is not clearly defined.